Killer instincts
This time, both Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers are on the hunt
Halloween is a movie franchise that specializes in torture. Not to its characters — though there’s plenty of that — but to its timeline. The 1978 original, a straightforward, well plotted slasher flick, has since ballooned into 11 movies, including the new one from director and co-writer David Gordon Green.
In 1982, Halloween III: Season of the Witch completely ignored villain Michael Myers in favour of a Scooby-Doo plot about a novelty company fronting a Stonehenge cult. Halloween 7 (a.k.a. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later) then expunged Halloweens four through six and thus functioned as a new Halloween III. Rob Zombie’s Halloween 9, which was also called Halloween, was a remake. It had its own sequel, Halloween II (a.k.a. Halloween 10).
Which brings us to Halloween, which is really what all future versions of the movie should also be called, just to avoid confusion. Green was aided in scriptwriting by Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down, Your Highness), which is probably why there are so many I-don’t-know-whether-to-laugh or-scream moments. And much like Jurassic World, it’s ignoring everything but the original.
Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Laurie Strode; 40 years ago (in her first big-screen role) she was terrorized by a masked killer. Now we learn that she’s spent the decades since then preparing for his eventual return. Her heavily fortified home — two bedrooms, two bathrooms, six panic rooms — seems more than enough to repel a zombie outbreak let alone a single killer who doesn’t even use guns, and who starts the movie locked in an institution.
But of course he escapes during a bus crash, and resumes his killing ways. And while he only managed to off five victims in the original — a fact remarked on cynically by a dopey stoner named Dave (Miles Robbins) — here he manages more than a dozen.
Green, whose eclectic body of work includes the lyrical George Washington, the political satire Our Brand Is Crisis and the biopic Stronger with Jake Gyllenhaal, dives into the horror genre with great enthusiasm but mixed results.
On the plus side, he brings back John Carpenter’s simple and creepy score from the original. (In another nod, we note that fictional Haddonfield, Ill., hasn’t changed its school’s curriculum in 40 years.) And he gives Curtis a formidable family, with Judy Greer as her estranged daughter, and Andi Matichak as her high school senior granddaughter; these Strodes don’t waste time having kids. They’re lucky they’re tough though, since their menfolk are an ineffectual bunch.
That said, the more-is-better ethos does get a little tiring, especially when Myers gets some unexpected help from a fan. It’s the weirdest twist since Monty Python added a killer bunny rabbit to The Holy Grail, and it doesn’t quite fit the franchise.
But it’s still worth the price of admission to see Curtis reprising a beloved role; with her frizzy hair and glasses, she looks even older than her 59 years. And her single-minded motivation will have audiences wondering just who is doing the stalking in this stalker picture. “I’ve waited for him; he’s waited for me,” she says of Myers, sounding more like she’s talking about an old lover than a killer. After 40 years, maybe it’s hard to differentiate. Certainly horror fans will feel as much love as fear.